Didn't somebody bring up the idea of another BattleNova/UHC/Minecraftapalooza recently? I would totally be game if we can find a proper time along a weekend. I figure with "the kids" back in school now (right?) maybe timing would be good soonish? How are everyone's schedules generally looking these days?

I haven't played at all since 1.10 dropped, and I seem to recall reading that 1.11 might have sneaky peek builds around the time of Minecon, which I think happens later this month. I might have to pick up my pickaxe and update my commands cheat sheet to figure out a good scenario for a night of fun before long.

(edit: I'm aware there are some nightlies for 1.11 already… I meant nightlies that have actual update-worthy goodies in them.)

I'm in, or at least I certainly hope to be in. Let us do this! Maybe Specmode will play again and not go invisible this time!

I'll need to update my license for Screenflow too.

Louis L'Amour, “To make democracy work, we must be a notion of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain.”
MineCraft? mc.applenova.com | Visit us! | Maybe someday I'll proof read, until then deal with it.

Didn't somebody bring up the idea of another BattleNova/UHC/Minecraftapalooza recently? I would totally be game if we can find a proper time along a weekend. I figure with "the kids" back in school now (right?) maybe timing would be good soonish? How are everyone's schedules generally looking these days?

So, like, crap. I totally got swamped with other things throughout October and dropped the ball on this. Mea culpa.

Let's smash the cosmic reset button and try this once again, shall we? How does everyone's schedules look for the weekend of Nov 18-20? For anyone who would like to participate, which of these slots works best? Do any of these specifically *not* work for you?

I can't do the evening if the 19th. I won't be available until about 8pm or so. Basically, I'm only available after 8 or so on the 19th.

Louis L'Amour, “To make democracy work, we must be a notion of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain.”
MineCraft? mc.applenova.com | Visit us! | Maybe someday I'll proof read, until then deal with it.

709, Elysium, Bryson: are you available this weekend for adventure time?

I know Robo has been lurking in the forums recently, and I'd love if he could join us once for this special event. You seeing this, buddy?

Looks like our best fit so far is Saturday, Nov 19th. Current availability:

Saturday afternoon: Drew, RowdyScott, Brad

Saturday evening: Ken, Jess, Turtle (?), Brad

I don't think we have enough people for a big battle UHC thing. So, let's do two other activities instead:

1. For something like 30 minutes, do a boxed-in "zombie run" through a modified version of Bradtropolis. Permanent night, modified spawn location within the city, barriers to keep you from leaving, all torches removed, and all glowstone replaced (randomly) with monster spawners or stone blocks. A leaderboard would track scores to keep everyone on their toes. I've been trying to add more stuff to the city recently specifically for an activity like this. I tried an offline zombie run with a backup recently, and I found it can be super challenging. You may find there are some places that *might* be safer than others where you could camp or heal up or rest before throwing yourself back to the undead hordes.

2. After the zombie run, do our classic exploration of a blank new world seed under the new 1.11 release. Hopefully we'll find some of the new goodies! I haven't tried *any* of the nightly builds for 1.11; so, this will be all new at least for me. Of course, the exploration world will be temporary, and we'll return the main world the following day until we figure out what to do with it (trimming, new seed, etc).

Since we don't have perfect consensus on a single time, I was thinking we'd do these *twice* to give everyone a chance to join, once Saturday afternoon and once Saturday evening. If anyone can join both sessions, that would be great too. I plan on doing that.

For Saturday afternoon participants, how does ~3 or ~4 PM EST sound?
For Saturday evening participants, how does ~8 or ~9 PM EST sound?

Blech. Bad news. Since yesterday afternoon, I've come down with a nasty cold/flu of some kind, and I was up all night with fever and nausea. I don't think I'll be able to coordinate the zombie run through the city today (which requires me doing a bunch of offline processing of world chunks and executing a bunch of commands in-game).

I really hate to leave you guys hanging, though. So, let's keep on with the new-world adventure! I'll shut down our current world and boot up a new 1.11 server around 3PM EST for everyone to explore today. I'll join for a while, but I may drop out earlier than anticipated.

No voice chat today since that's not as necessary just for exploration. Though, that's a really good idea for the zombie run that I hadn't considered since it'll be hard to type in chat while monsters are chasing you around. I'll be sure to set that up for whenever we reschedule the zombie run.

If you haven't already, be sure to set up separate profiles in the Minecraft launcher for 1.10 and 1.11. Specifically for today, you'll want to use 1.11, and late tonight I'll revert to 1.10 until we do the world prune and officially update to 1.11.

That said, is it too early to go ahead and try to reschedule (again) the zombie run?

Here are some more details on what I was planning to do with that:

reset spawn to be in front of the Community Exchange cube

set a "world barrier" for radius 400 centered around the center of the city; this nicely wraps just the city area

remove all torches in the city

replace 3/4 of the glowstone in the city with stone

replace 1/4 of the glowstone in the city with mob spawners (of various types but mostly zombies)

set the in-game time to midnight and stop the daylight cycle, meaning it's stuck at midnight

enable a "kill count" scoreboard floating on the right-hand side of the screen

wipe all player data so everyone starts clean

set the default play mode to "adventure" which means you cannot place or break blocks

disable "mob griefing" which means creepers and blazes won't destroy the world

That sets up the parameters of the game. In addition, to make the onslaught more tolerable, I set up a station at the exchange that equips you with a full set of leather armor and an iron sword, and I have been placing "power up" buttons (with command blocks) in strategic places in the city that give you better armor, weapons, and food. Those buttons are mostly near rooftops or aren't necessarily easy to reach, but high risk means high reward! Before we start, I'll post general locations for the power ups so you aren't left searching blindly. The existing restaurants, apartment kitchens, and office cafeterias in the city also have food in more accessible locations that you can take from chests, furnaces, or dispensers.

Next weekend is Thanksgiving in the US, and although I plan to be in town without planned activities, I guess others might not be as available. Who would be available next Saturday, Nov 26th? Alternatively, who would be available the following Saturday, Dec 3rd?

After many deaths, we finally conquered the mansion and raided all of its loot.

We have llamas. Llamas! Watch out; they spit.

And a pretty swanky home base of operations.

Since a few people who expressed interest haven't been able to make it over yet, I'll just leave this brave new world running overnight into tomorrow, and we'll switch back to the old classic world afterwards.